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Gemma must have drifted off for a short time, but when she awoke sometime in the night, she knew what she needed to do. It was time to leave Maverick and Kylie behind. She knew she couldn’t wholly trust Mav, and she still didn’t want to mix Kylie up in the kind of trouble Gemma was truly facing.
She eased up from her sleeping bag as the other two slept on. As she made her way toward the passage that Kylie said most likely led to the cavern with the portal, she noticed movement on the floor of the cave. The dim light was enough for her to recognize the cat Gaston.
With a low whisper, she asked, “Where did you go?”
He yawned lazily and said, “If you must know...”
But she cut him off with a hurried shush. “Keep your voice down. I’m not trying to start a party.”
His voice was a whisper as he said, “Oh, I see. It’s an escape.”
She paused before asking, “Are you going to rat me out?”
“First of all, don’t...ever...use the word rat around me. I’ve had too many bad experiences. Second, snitches get stitches, and I’m no snitch, witch.”
“Bad experiences with rats? Who hasn’t? Oh, never mind. Just, thank you for not waking Mav. I need to go through the portal alone.”
He approached where she stood and rubbed against her feet as he walked through and around her legs. “Rats are freakin’ perverts, and I will...never...be able to unsee what I’ve seen. That’s all I’m going to say about that.”
“Okay. I don’t need to know any more about that at all. What I do need to know is if you’ve been in the cavern with the portal, and, if so, what you saw there?”
“I’m just saying that rats will fuck anything and everything. If you really want me to paint a picture, I can.”
“No!” Her whisper rose, and the others shifted restlessly in their sleep. Once she was sure they were sleeping deeply once more, she said, “I don’t want to know about the rats. I just need to know about the Portal Police.”
“I really don’t know about their sexual habits.”
She rolled her eyes and breathed in slowly through her nostrils. “I don’t care about their personal lives. I just want to know how many are around the portal.”
Gaston yawned again. “This conversation is boring me. I think it’s time for a nap.”
“Can you help me first, please?”
“I suppose I can offer a little information...if you tell me a secret of yours.”
“What? I don’t have time for this. Just tell me how many.”
If a cat could shrug, Gaston did. “You heard my price.”
She could feel her face warming with her irritation. She whisper-shouted, “Fine! I’ve never enjoyed being an assassin. My father forced me to go to the Assassin’s Academy, and for a long time, I hated him because of it. I’ve never before felt the satisfaction I get from removing cursed objects. That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“Now, was that so hard? I feel like I know you better now.”
Gemma counted to ten and strove to hold onto her temper. Through her teeth, she hissed, “How many?”
“Only two. The other police are roaming the woods or sleeping.”
“Thank you, Gaston. That actually helps.”
“Oh, goodie! My dreams are finally fulfilled. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some rest. I just hope I don’t have nightmares about perverted rats.”
She shook her head as he walked toward the back of the cave, passing Maverick along the way. But true to his word, he didn’t snitch, and he disappeared around a boulder, she assumed to settle down behind it and sleep.
Forewarned what to expect now, she turned to make her way to the cavern and to the portal. She still wasn’t entirely sure how she would get past the guards, but she knew it was time to try. She just had to think through her abilities and how to apply her skills to a difficult situation.
The whole situation was nothing but trouble, and it reminded Gemma of a drill the students of the Assassin Academy performed yearly. The only difference was that at the academy, the students were split into two teams, and the object of the drill was to sneak past the guards of the other team in order to capture that team’s flag. Gemma’s team won almost every year because she could do a particular trick that distracted the guards and allowed her teammates to sneak into the room where the other team’s flag was free and clear to take. The one time they lost, the instructors had decided to assign the teams, and her friend Peto and she were separated. He knew how she’d won all the previous years and shared it with his teammates. She hadn’t expected him to put her above winning. She knew that wasn’t the way of the assassin, but she had been a little hurt, though she’d never admitted that to anyone.
This wasn’t exactly the same situation, but she was fairly sure she could still pull it off. She just needed to find a quiet spot to sit with no chance of being disturbed or caught. Once she was there, she could project herself onto the astral plane, which many witches could do. However, something she could do that many others couldn’t was then to manifest a spectral version of herself right outside the cave.
The hum and glow of the portal carried down the tight corridor where she was narrowly squeezing through. Yet, as she scanned for a place to park herself for the plan to work, a low shelf that seemed made for a body to lay out flat appeared as the passage widened slightly. Once she was settled, she closed her eyes and felt her mind begin to drift. She concentrated on the image of her soul lifting from her body. Repeatedly, she pictured the manifestation of that image outside of the cave. Slowly, she felt herself sliding into something like sleep, but before she dropped into unconsciousness, her spirit felt as if it rose above her body and turned. She could see her body, seemingly asleep, below her.
Yet, she didn’t stick around to admire her accomplishment. Instead, she closed her eyes and pictured herself at the mouth of the cave. When she opened her eyes, she was facing a woman and a man wearing uniforms, standing at attention in front of the portal.
“Hey! Stop right there!” They moved quickly toward her, and she took off out the cave.
Once the guards gave chase into the woods, radioing for assistance, she reentered her body. She awoke with a gasp but crawled off the rock shelf, picked up her backpack, and took off for the portal. She had a limited amount of time before they figured out they were searching for a specter.
She slid through a narrow neck of the passage and had to crawl through the last ten feet until a large room came into view. She stood up and rounded a large, circular boulder that seemed to be balanced on a tiny point underneath, but she stopped once the portal came into sight. She couldn’t believe she was this close to going back to Linwyn. So many memories of all she’d left behind came flooding back to her mind. She felt her eyes beginning to water, but she held herself steady and refused to fall apart. She wasn’t going back to the same world. The one she was returning to was one without her father. And it was up to her to rectify that or die trying.
Shadows were moving outside of the mouth of the cave, and Gemma knew she was out of time to ruminate. She had to act now. Her feet took over, and she pushed herself toward the Caribbean blue of the swirling portal.
The Portal Police guards stepped into the cave just as she stood in front of the portal.
“What are you doing? Get away from there! You’re not authorized!”
She chewed her bottom lip, thought of Linwyn, took a deep breath, and dove through the glowing spin of the portal.